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All right, what's up everybody? Welcome to the first Basement Bodybuilding tier list. Of course, we had to start with biceps. I do plan on going through probably every major muscle group or at least most of them. I'm not going to be
Basement Bodybuilding ranks the best and worst bicep exercises, focusing on conventional lifts and optimizing exercise selection.
Key Takeaways
- Exercise selection significantly impacts muscle growth and training effectiveness.
- Strict dumbbell curls offer excellent progression potential due to stability and consistent mechanics.
- Cable curls do not provide constant tension as commonly believed; their resistance profile is similar to dumbbells.
- Short-biased lifts like strict curls are ideal for incorporating lengthened partial reps.
- Prioritizing conventional, well-understood lifts can optimize bicep training results.
Summary
- Introduction to Basement Bodybuilding's tier list series starting with biceps.
- Focus on conventional and popular bicep exercises, excluding less common variations.
- Discussion on the importance of exercise selection in muscle training.
- Detailed analysis of the strict dumbbell curl including pros, cons, and progression potential.
- Explanation of cable curls and common misconceptions about resistance profiles.
- Mention of sponsor products and coaching opportunities.
- Emphasis on stability, force output, and range of motion in bicep exercises.
- Comparison of different bicep curl variations and their effectiveness.
- Highlighting the value of partial reps and lengthened partials in training.
- Encouragement to prioritize certain lifts based on their biomechanical advantages.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Overview of Tier List Series
- 02:13Sponsor Shoutouts and Apparel Recommendations
- 04:43Strict Dumbbell Curl: Pros, Cons, and Analysis
- 07:09Cable Curls: Mechanics and Misconceptions
- 10:49Exercise Selection Philosophy and Training Tips
- 14:15Comparisons of Bicep Curl Variations
- 17:40Training Techniques: Partials and Range of Motion
- 22:17Summary and Final Recommendations
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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pumping these out like crazy, but if it gets good feedback and you want to see more, I'll obviously keep them in mind to keep doing them. It's just a matter of trying to kind of pace them
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out so it doesn't take over the rest of the content that I plan on making. So, with that being said, a couple things to go over real quick. So this tier list is going to be lifts that I'm very
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familiar with. I didn't have like kind of random lifts like a banded curl or kind of funky ring variations or anything. No disrespect to those lifts, but I'm not entirely experienced with them and they're not
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very conventional. So what I like to do is pick more conventional lifts, stuff that I'm more familiar with, stuff that's more popular, and then talk about the variations that I think are best and how to optimize these lifts, which ones are
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worth doing, which ones are not worth doing, and which ones you should absolutely be prioritizing. Tier lists, while they can be a little bit gimmicky, they just provide such a good opportunity to talk to exercise selection, which is in my opinion one of
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the most underrated topics in the fitness industry. There's a lot of people that will talk about laundry lists of lifts that you need to do to target every little area from each muscle, but aside from that, I think exercise
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selection, like when people say you can do whatever lift you want and all results are going to be the same, I heavily disagree with that, and I think I can provide a good case for that with good context in these tier lists. So
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I think there is a lot, a lot of value there. With that being said, I did want to give a shout out to Barbar Larel and let you guys know they're having their summer sale. So the way this works,
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if you buy three items, so if you put three items in your cart, one of them is going to be free. So you basically pay for two, you get a third for free. This applies to shirts and shorts, so summer sale
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obviously shirts and shorts makes the most sense. The Ultra Light Tech Tee, my go-to shirts, that's what you see me wearing in my lifting vlogs. The fit is just immaculate. It's literally the best fitting shirt I've ever worn, and
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that's why I wear them for every single lift that I do. Not even exaggerating. The Covert shorts are sweet too. I love to wear these just either like around the house. They're like comfy chino type shorts, but they're kind of a
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stretchy material. I'm actually wearing them now, not planned, but I just like them. They're great for outdoor stuff too, so like camping, hiking, that kind of stuff. Perfect material. They got good pockets and some good structure without
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being too restrictive. So if you want to see any of those items, check out the link in my description. You can shop my collection, get yourself some good stuff, some free stuff, and support the channel. In the meantime, I also did want to give
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a shout out to Boost Camp, the other channel sponsor. You can check my free upper-lower program if you already have the app and have premium. You can see my push-pull legs, push-pull, and then real quick, a very rare occasion on this
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channel, I actually do have a couple coaching spots open. So if you have any questions or if you're interested, just send me an email and we can kind of go from there. So let's get into this tier
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list. Let's see if I can even find the right tab to open. Okay, there we go. So we've got a bicep tier list. Of course, this ad's going to be in the way the whole time. It is what it is. So got a handful
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of lifts down here. What we've got first is the strict dumbbell curl. So the strict dumbbell curl, what is good about this lift? What is bad about this lift? So this one is obviously, it's a very normal piece of equipment. It's a dumbbell.
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Everyone uses dumbbells. That's kind of the default for bicep training in the first place, but not a whole ton of people do strict curls, and not a lot of people do them in the strict fashion that I'm doing here with my upper arm on
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the rack post. So there are pros and cons to any lift, and when I say pros and cons, take that with—I don't take that too literally. It's more so just things that the lift does really well and maybe
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a few key areas that the lift maybe doesn't train as well, a few things that just are missed that might need to be made up in other variations. So pros and cons, I don't know, it kind of
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oversimplifies like the strengths and weaknesses, I guess, of each lift. So this lift, obviously these are all stick figures, and then you've got me over here. I couldn't find this lift for my life on Google Images because it's not very
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popular, as I stated already. So this lift, there are a bunch of good things about it. One, it's strict. So when I say it's strict, I'm not talking about you choosing to make the lift strict. I'm talking about there's support behind
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your upper arm, so you don't have to worry about stability being the limiting factor of your force output. So all you have to do is just curl. It has good progression potential since the lift isn't going to change as you
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get stronger and start to use heavier weight. The leverages don't change. It's just going to be something that you can add weight on pretty regularly throughout your whole lifting career. Since it's a short-biased lift,
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that is kind of one of the drawbacks, but since it's short-biased and since it's very strict, I find this is probably the perfect opportunity to use lengthened partials in your training. I'm not a huge fan of just doing partial reps, although I do kind of like to do
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them on some short-biased lifts beyond failure. This is probably just the perfect lift to do it on since you can keep it nice and stable, get a very high force output, and really just tack the whole range of motion on. These you'll
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find that you can kind of get right to parallel, so right beyond 90 degrees elbow flexion, and then your range of motion just shrinks ever so slightly each rep. It's short-biased and there's really no clear lockout, and
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then from there you can just keep going and just keep applying as much force as you can, and then eventually your arm just won't be moving very much at all and your biceps will feel absolutely fried. The sensations are very high in
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this lift. It's a very good lift. You don't have to overthink it. It's very straightforward. The strength potential is fairly low, but the progression potential is excellent because you can add weight forever and the lift doesn't change. So
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it's not lengthened-biased. It is still stable, so it has some good, some quote-unquote bad, I guess. It can't go quite in the S tier, but this is one of the best non-lengthened-biased lifts in my opinion.
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You can also do these with a cable if you prefer. It doesn't really matter that much. So these are going to go in A tier as the first one for today. So up next, you've got cable curls. So cable
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curls, and there is some, I guess, some crossover between some lifts like a cable curl versus barbell curl. The difference really isn't that big. So you're going to see me kind of skim over some of these lifts
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and just say, like, all right, this is essentially the same as this lift. It's just on a barbell versus a cable. So a cable curl, a lot of people think that this is going to be like a consistent
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flat resistance profile with constant tension. That's not how cables work. I can expand more on this in another video, but basically cables function the same way a dumbbell does. So when people say, well, a dumbbell or a barbell has kind of an
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arcing resistance profile, and yeah, you're not wrong, but when people say that a cable doesn't, it has a flat resistance profile because the weight just goes up and down, you have to realize that gravity doesn't change in relation to the dumbbell. The dumbbell is
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is always the dumbbell when you're doing a dumbbell curl is always going to want to go directly down it's in it's the dumbbell in relation to your elbow it's the same thing with the cable even though the weight Stacks are just going
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vertical up and down the whole time the distance from the load so the bar in your hand to your elbow horizontally or horizontal to wherever uh the the cable origin is set that's what's going to dictate the resistance profile so cable
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curls they are very comparable to barbell curls or Easy Bar curls depending on your attachment they are stable if you're doing them with a bar attachment that is connected on both sides uh so that's a pro uh they they do
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feel quite good uh I think because of the variety of attachments uh so you can really just customize them more than you could a barbell curl or something like that uh with that said they short biased especially if you're just having the
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cable in front of you like this uh it gets a little bit tricky because even to make it just mid-range biased or at least the same resistance profile as barbell car you have to stand super close to the cable I find that more
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often than not people stand back a little bit and that just makes it more short biased so I'm going to put cable curl in B tier it's a good lift in B tier isn't bad at all uh I I still I
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still do cable CRS but it just because the lift is an S tier doesn't mean you can't do it it just might not be something you want to rely on for just your like prime mover for your uh for
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your biceps so now we're going to get into some preach variations actually it looks like these didn't quite save on me so I might have to skip around a little bit so where are preacher curls all right here we go so preacher curls this
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will be the lift that that I do next uh these can be done with an easy bar or a barbell the bar bar that you use doesn't matter that much in terms of the actual stimulus you have it's more so just
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finding either what you prefer or what's more comfortable the mechanics of the lift are what's going to be key here so preacher C talked about these a bazillion times on the channel these are a great lift because one they're very
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stable and two they are lengthen biased so this can allow you to put most tension on the bicep in a stretch in the lengthen position it's not a full stretch since your elbow's not behind you but your bicep is just about nearly
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all the way lengthened uh when Peak tension occurs in this lift so it's very good for that reason it's also stable since you have uh elbow support So makes it uh very consistent to track it allows for a very high Force
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output since tension can't really leak it's a true isolation lift where if you try and cheat at all there's not not really anywhere tension can leak since your elbows are making contact on that pad versus like a barbell curl or a
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cable curl you can sh your entire body around tension can leak through anywhere even like your knees or your hips for example where just can't on a preacher curl of course you can kind of change uh the angle of your upper arm by leaning
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forwards or back a little bit but it's just not enough to to Warrant a knock on the lift at all I really can't think of any particular downsides for this lift uh the only things I'd say is if you're
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prone to maybe like elbow weakness overall like if you're not trained in a lengthened position um it might have it might require some building up of strength and size probably down in that distal region of the bicep or at least some tendon
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strength so it might take a little bit of like loading time to kind of build that lift up uh this can be an issue in some people but I'd say the the injuries that you see of people tearing their
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biceps on preacher curls are just from uh bad programming and bad decisions it's probably going to be someone on Peds so that just goes way too heavy someone that maxes out and isn't trained for it or someone that just hops into
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preacher curls for the first time and goes heavier than they can handle or just goes much harder than they can handle when they first start this movement because a lot of the time in a regular regular old training program
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that you'll see on anyone in a commercial gym the biceps rarely get trained in length and position so once you can kind of adapt to that it becomes a really good lift and this is this is truly the lift that gave me 18 inch arms
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uh it absolutely is so that is going to go in a tier because I have to put it there first so I can drag it all the way up to S tier so there's preacher curls let's talk about some other preach curl
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variations so up next where where did they go okay all right here we go so up next I'm going to talk about this Arsenal preach machine it's not the most common machine but I imagine it will become more popular over time because I
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think Arsenal is a slowly but surely growing uh Jim equipment man manufacturer um I'm starting to see it a little bit more and more and I absolutely love their equipment this is the machine that I use in the commercial
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gym uh it resembles a preacher curl but your elbows are set up just a little bit higher so it's more of like a 90 Dee bench instead of 45 degrees it doesn't matter because it's a machine and it's
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not uh it's it's engineered to still kind of match the resistance profile of a preer the cool thing about this is it's just a tad bit more stable um I find it to be a little bit more comfortable because the um the the pad
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that you rest your elbows on also has a back so it's like chest support too it just feels a little bit more natural I find and I do find it's even a little bit more lengthen biased than a preacher
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curl uh and it sounds a little bit crazy but a preach to to get fully lengthened biased you have to have your arm up at 90 degrees uh like this and basically curl from there so uh this machine is is
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close to that it's not quite due to the mechanics of the machine it's not like a full like table curl like an arm wrestler would do uh but it's super grindable because as you get to failure you can actually shift back just a
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little bit and it it makes it a little bit easier so it's an excellent machine I would also put this in the S tier there we go so you can see that up there behind that little ad so next up
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what we've got I'm going to do this one here this is the prime preach machine so so this machine is excellent because you pick your resistance profile a regular preacher curl or the Arsenal preacher curl the resistance profile is already
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set it's going to be very difficult at the bottom and super easy at the top to where there's really no tension at the top so what this does is it allows you to manipulate that resistance profile very easily very easily so you can see
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these pegs uh on the side of the machine instead of just having one place where you load up the plates or just a pin that you uh have like a non-adjustable cam for basically what this does is it
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arcs as you uh that looked horrible basically it arcs as you curl so if you were to load the plates all the way on this bottom pin down here I don't know if you can really see it if you were to
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load the plates here they would start about here and then they would Arc up and kind of stop right about here so it's about 90 degrees worth of travel so from here if the plates just traveling parallel to the ground you're really not
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moving a whole ton of weight so it's very similar to just doing like a standing bar B curl it's very easy to get the bar moving at first and then it gets quite hard as you approach 90 Dees
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so this would be uh short bias because it's very light at the bottom and then much harder as you kind of get to that Peak contraction you can also set it on this middle Peg here and essentially what this does is it just makes it a
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mid-range bias lift so what you'll do is you'll start below Peak resistance so it's a little bit easier as you get about halfway up you get two peak resistance and then from there it gets easier as you start to lock out so
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perfect example of a mid-range bias lift another cool thing you can do here is just make it lengthen biased and this is essentially what a preacher curl that Arsenal curl is going to do if you load the plates up on this top Peg here so
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what you can do here is basically make it most challenging at the bottom and then it gets much easier as it arcs up to the top and eventually you're going parallel to the floor basically again but now it's at the top in the
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contraction instead of the bottom so uh it's very basic physics as long as you you kind of try and wrap your head around it it's pretty straightforward um anyone can really understand stuff so the cool thing about this if you think
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outside the box just a little bit you can mix and match so you can put some of your rate on the top some on the middle you can put half on the top half on the middle some on the bottom you can dis
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disperse it evenly it is basically just a an excellent machine preacher curl which does have a little bit of added stability not enough for me to like make it change tis or anything the stability on a regular preure C the free weight is
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totally fine uh there's no issue there whatso ever uh but it does have added variety so you couldn't give it a knock so I'm going to put this in s tier as well so we've got one more preach curl
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machine let's hop into this one so this is the Hammer Strength preach curl machine there's a handful of companies that make a very similar model to this so I I just picked Hammer Strength because it's the most popular so what
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you're going to see here looks like a regular old preach machine and then you load your plates on this little Peg down here so the Hammer Strength preach C Machine a a lot of people in the comments and even a few of my clients
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kind of ask these questions like well shouldn't I just do the Hammer Strength machine or like the plate loaded uh machine instead because it's a little bit more stable and at first glance it seems it seems like a pretty good option
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there's one problem though this machine is only short biased so what you'll notice and this is for basically all Hammer Strength machines by the way they're short biased machines so that's one thing to take into account when you
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load the plates at the bottom you're below the axis so the a is going to be right up here kind of around elbow level and if the plates are down kind of by your ankles that means as you curl and
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the lever comes up you're coming up to just roughly parallel with the axis so Peak resistance is going to be at the top in the contraction and it gets harder as you curl and easier the more you lengthen your bicep and if you're
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looking for probably where the biceps have best leverage and where muscles are generally going to grow best plus having a a resistance profile with a clear lockout where you can standardize your performance it's hard to give this a
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good grade so while it's it's it has its pros like it's stable uh you can add weight forever like you can any either lift basically uh and it looks cool I mean I have a hard time putting that
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high so I'm going to put this uh plate loaded preacher curl I'm going to put this in I'm going to put it in C tier D tier feels a little harsh because there's some lifts that are just objectively bad and this does have some
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some good things going for it but the short bias just it knocks it down just a little bit and the reason for that is because not only is it short biased in terms of resistance profile it's short biased in terms of the strength curve
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too because your biceps are going to be weaker in the Pak contraction than they are going to be in the bottom so that's a little bit more nitpicky but C tier feels appropriate for this up next we've got just a standard good old barbell
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curl nope here she is okay so barbell curl and easy bar curl and to put these next to each other because they're essentially the same thing so these are kind of going to be grouped together a barbell curl this is the classic like
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compound type barbell lifts uh for the biceps or you can just treat it like a squat bench deadlift and add weight forever progressively overload and your biceps will end up massive so if you look at it just on paper that makes
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sense but in practice when you get into like the mechanics of this lift isolation lifts simply just don't work the same way as compounds simply because of biomechanics so when you take something like a barbell bench press the
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lift doesn't change as you get stronger because it's very stable and you're just pressing basically directly up and down with a little bit of a vertical slant on it so or almost vertical slant that doesn't really make sense but basically
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with a barbell curl now you're factoring in your center of mass changing as the lift goes so instead of a squat where you go up and down a deadlift where you go up and down a bench where you go go
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up and down a barbell curl you go out and around so with this lift if you're an 150 lb person and you're curling 50 lbs that's fine you're curling a third of your body weight it's just not enough
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to really affect the lift in terms of stability uh to where your your body has to kind of compensate by like shifting around your elbows or leaning back to fix your center of Mass to make it a little bit more stable but if you let's
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say you go on a nice bulk you get a lot stronger maybe you're an intermediate now let's say you're curling 105 PBS but you weigh 175 now now you're curling over half of your body weight you're probably curling close to 2/3 of your
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body weight and the problem with this is now this has a bigger uh change on your center of mass so when the barbell is resting on your thighs and your arms are fully extended you can sit there all day
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until your grip gives out but now when you're at Peak resistance so your arms are at 90 degrees the barbell is a forearms distance in front of you and that's going to play a pretty big role in changing your center of mass so now
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you have to find a way to compensate for that before the barbell starts to slowly pull you forwards so you have to lean back and that's why you can try and do barbell curl stripped forever but eventually you just simply can't do them
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shrip or you're just going to fall forwards and that starts to become an issue as your barbell curl weight catches up to your own body weight so it's a good lift specifically for beginners it's decent for intermediates too once you're Advanced like I I don't
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even do them at all I would do I would do them as like a finisher like a second or third lift after I've done like my regular pre-s which stay the same as strong as you get uh I I can't say it's
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that great of a lift though forever the progressive overload potential contrary to popular popular belief is not that good uh it's it's simply an overrated lift the easy bar curl is the same thing it has a little bit more freedom for
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your wrist to change but that doesn't change the stimulus that's more so just avoiding certain little things that might hold you back so it's more so about uh what good things does this lift offer then how can we avoid like little
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nitpicky details like wrist positioning and stuff since that doesn't play a role in stimulus aside from avoiding uh injury so uh barbell curl not to mention these lifts are short bias too uh barbell curl I would put in oh it's tough to say b or c
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tier I put cable curls in B tier so I have to put the barbell and the easy bar curl in B tier as well these are probably lower in the B tier I don't know if I'm necessarily going to rank
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the mid order though so up next we've got myself doing some concentration curls um I had a black and white camera this day for whatever reason but that's all besides the point so basically a concentration curl this is kind of the
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epitome of it's not so much the lift it's how you do the lift because there's a bunch of different ways to do a concentration curl if you have a big chunky dumbbell like I have here that's a giant Olympic adjustable dumbbell and
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you're using horrible technique yet it's not a lift I would do but if you have maybe more compact dumbells you have your legs set up in a position where you can kind of put your upper arm at the
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perfect angle and you have a way to keep it stable now it becomes a really good lift so this lift it could be D tier it could be a tier it depends on how you execute and that's the tough thing about
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raiding a lift like this but I would say if you're using the ideal technique so in my opinion the ideal technique would be placing your elbow just inside your thigh so not placing your forearm on top of your thigh you're placing your elbow
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on the inside and if you can tilt your shoulder back just a little bit it almost becomes like a mild version of a Preacher so becomes a little bit more lengthened by still kind of a lengthened to mid-range like hybrid lift I would
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say it would be tough to get your elbow or your upper arm at 45 degrees or Beyond like a preacher curl but kind of like a 60 to 75 degree angle that's pretty realistic for this lift and it's
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going to be fairly easy to maintain since it's not that extreme and Mobility wise it should be totally fine so I'd say if you do these properly it's not as good as a preal it's not as strict uh
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obviously as a pre girl it's not as stable is probably a better way to put it but it's still a very good lift uh it is unilateral which isn't my preference it just takes more time and then of
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course uh it isn't as strict uh like you can superate or pronate more as you go you can kind of change the angle of your forearm which maybe recruits the brachi Alis a little bit more or less buy up a
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little bit more or less so it's not ideal but it is pretty good um I would put this in this is another lift where it's kind of on the fence between uh B and C tier I'm going to go
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ahead I think for some I don't know if you guys could see that but it just like didn't drag so I probably needed just one more yeah I probably needed one more tier on here but yeah either either way
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yeah B tier it's it's a it's an appro tier I would say it's an appropriate tier so up next what we've got this is the conventional deadlift and you might be like what are you talking about Mr basement but little do you young lifters
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know this was very popular when I was getting into lifting because the deadlifts would grow your biceps just because you're holding the bar and your biceps have to work just a little bit isometrically but you're using super heavy weight that will grow the crap out
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of your bicep that logic doesn't really hold up when you really think about it but it sounds uh when people speak about that like it's uh the absolute truth you you start to believe it a little bit so then
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you're not as worried about doing your curls at the end of your session since your biceps already handled 600 pounds on a deadlift your earlier that session so you're not really worried about going hard on curls they're an accessory lift
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anyways and you you did your squats too and your squats boost your own uh growth hormone which will grow every other muscle in your body more than curls ever would so the conventional deadlift I'll probably put these in D tier because all of that's
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BS uh up next I'm terribly blind guys I'm sorry okay the waiter curl so this one uh this lift again like I said with a concentration curl it it depends on your Technique I would say this your Technique is it's everyone's is kind of
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going to be the same uh but I'd say it's it's totally occupation dependent for this one so if it's appropriate for your job then I say go for it it could just really help you um bring over super
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small Trace uh that do happen to be very heavy then again if you're if you're not working in the food service industry it's like realistically like when are you ever going to um when are you ever going to have to do this it's just not
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functional for you so I would say this this lift is like it it it's it's it's kind of fine like it's it's it's the most gimmicky thing you could really think of and even just looking at it like seeing a like a stick figure the
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muscle highlighted like someone's taking it seriously it it makes me laugh it's hard to look at that and take it seriously but it it really isn't just a terrible lift um it it's hard I'm going to have to put it in D tier just because
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it is what it is you're not really going to be able to do this comfortably for very long uh but if you can do it comfortably I don't see why it's any worse than like just a close grrip
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barbell curl so I don't know I'll throw this in D tier obviously above deadlifts I guess I'll rank this one since I'm already here next we've got beige and curls these are actually very popular lift I find people absolutely love them
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uh I think there's there's something about the stretch uh that that people just really like I'm not too huge on the stretch I think it's useful to get if it's an appropriate time but I see very often people go for a stretch on lifts
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where it's just entirely unnecessary like if there's if there's not a whole ton of tension in stretch there's really no point in going for a deep stretch anyways that's a little bit besides the point of bish and curls but I think just
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talking about the stretch and how popular and trendy it is in recent years I think it gets a little bit overrated it definitely gets conflated with training in longer lengths overall and having Peak tension at a longer muscle
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length uh but with that being said ban curs there's still a fine lift that puts your bicep in a stretch by placing your elbow behind your torso and then from there it's kind of like a mid-range bias lift similar to uh any other free weight
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curl that you're doing just standing up like a dumbbell or bar curl so it's a totally fine lift trains the muscle at a generally longer length than a barbell or a dumbbell would the resistance profile is going to be the same but the
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muscle length again is just a little bit longer um and the again these aren't the most stable lift because obviously you're pulling from behind you so I find that the heavier you go and the stronger you get it does get kind of awkward to
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set up so the the progression potential isn't that great these I see as a very good like secondary lift to whatever preach variation you prefer uh so I would put these in the a tier these are going to be a little bit better than
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these options here uh but not quite as good as a preach chur or a genuinely good preach churl machine with solid mechanics in the same tier as the strict dumbbell curls where you can do some length and partials after good lift very
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good lift not excellent uh up next we've got alternating and suating dumbbell curls so these are going to be a little bit unique so these are going to be done unilaterally or best done unilaterally so what you can do here is since you're
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doing one side at a time it doesn't affect your center of mass as much so if you're curling 120 pounds and you're a 200 PB person that feels super awkward but if you can cut that in half and you
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can do alternating dumbell curls with 60 pounds and by the time uh your first let's say your first rep is done with your right arm by the time that's down now you're just starting your left arm so at all times there's only 60 lb Max
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in front of you and to add to this you now have an extra 60 lbs next to your center of mass which can help stabilize you even more so now you weigh to 60 basically and you're only curling 60
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pounds in front of your body so that's another cool thing and that's why that's why a lot of people like to do these alternating and some people are like oh well yeah I don't know why I do it
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alternating I used to be like that I'd be like well for whatever reason it just like feels better like I I can't explain it but it just feels better it it doesn't make any sense that it should but it does and that's that's why and
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that's uh that's why I love to talk about resistance profiles and mechanics so much on this channel is because I think it's something that just gets left out of so so many talking points and people kind of like know things but
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don't actually understand them so they can't really apply something they learn in one situation uh to other situations and it just it holds people back from truly understanding lifting in my opinion so uh alternating dumbbell curls uh they're more stable than an easy bar
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or a barbell curl or just a dumbbell curl that you do by laterally they do train superation decently well um obviously it's not a direct superation like you would uh like you could do with like a cable and an actual super Nation
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tool um or attachment I guess I don't know why I said Tool uh so it's still decent um you can cheat a little bit as needed and you don't have to worry about stabil stability here so these aren't
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the best at gets because they're still short bias but they have a lot of Pros uh that I do think make it a great lift for that reason I'm going to put them in the a tier sorry about these ads guys by
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the way uh up next we've got the dumbbell preacher girl so again one little more preach curl variation because I had to include it so dumbbell preach CS these are only something I would do if I don't have access to a regular preacher
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station so if you're a home gym guy with a barbell Rings adjustable dumbbells and adjustable bench this is an excellent option the drawbacks to this over a barbell preacher is it's less stable so your forearm can shift around side to
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side I find this happens a lot of the time where guys kind of like lean over and their elbow kind of digs in more towards the center and the dumbbell Falls outwards a little bit just like this so it becomes a little bit of a
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funky movement it's hard to say how much that matters uh but I I imagine it's not um it's probably not a deal breaker but there's no way that's as good as something more stable like a preacher girl since you are shifting away from uh
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Peak tension just a little bit so I would say it's still a great option and if it's the best option you have available you have to do it in my personal recommendation um but if you have access to a regular pre GRL machine
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and you don't have any wrist pain from using an easy bar or straight bar uh I would do that instead uh but this is still going to be a great option to train the biceps into Leng POS lengthen
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position probably not quite on the same level as the other variations it's still a very very good lift but you can't put everything in s tier if it has a little bit of a drawback it's still a tier that
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doesn't mean it's like a bad lifter like totally inferior but a tier list is so you can have a true ranking and look at this we've got three 4 4 One Two like this is how a tier list should be in my
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opinion so up next we've got spider curls this this cat's doing doing him a little funky uh his elbows are up super high the proper way to do a true spider curl would just be to to drop your
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armpits onto that corner of the pad so the spider curl you might say well it's the exact same as this strict dumbbell curl here what's the difference might be a little bit more stable since it's barbell instead of dumbbell my counter
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to this is if you look at the body positioning you place your elbow farther in front of you so a lift that's already short biased in terms of resistance profile you're now placing your bicep in an even shorter position to start so
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when you're on a spider curl station your elbows are at least 45 degrees in front of your torso so it makes it super short biased it's still a very good lift but you know what this is comparable to
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this is very comparable to this lift here so they're similar and you might be saying this list is super nitpicky since there's really not much of a difference between something like this and then these two lifts here but there's just
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these little upsides and little downsides that make a pretty big difference in bicep training because after all it's bicep training it's just a muscle that doesn't have a whole ton of functions it's a pretty straightforward muscle to train uh as
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long as you understand what you're doing and those the things that I try and teach on this channel so up next what we've got is a strict standing barbell curl so strict standing barbell curl well this is just so similar to so many
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other lifts on here and the cool thing about this is it takes some uh some kind of pros of some L but it has its own little con that not a whole lot of people think about so with a strict
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barbell curl what you're doing here is you're keeping your back up against the wall and your elbows can stay pinned so your elbows and your arms can stay pinned to the wall that's what this guy is doing right here you can also do them
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uh competitive Shri curl style where you go super narrow grip with an easy bar you raise your elbows like a little bit of front raise like this and I would say just from like a resistance profile perspective that makes a little bit more
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sense uh in terms of just standardization that also makes a little bit more sense the latter not the former there uh and then what I would say to this is the con here is if you're raising your elbows a bunch again it
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does put your bicep in a super short position Without Really lengthening it that much with a whole ton of tension and like you could do lengthened partials in the bottom of these two lifts where your elbows are in a or your
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biceps are in a very short position to start or even this lift they're just kind of relaxed by your side in a mid position and do some uh partials Beyond failure here the problem with this is your thighs are going to be in the way
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or the plates are going to be in the way from the barbell so with a strict barbell curl very hard to do longer length partials it's still a very good lift this is the the perfect lift to put
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in uh right into B tier and the within each tier you are going to have different ranks too um but I would say this is going to be a little bit better than these two because your elbow is
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right by your side it's not in front of you and it's the same resistance profile and then it's it's also very similar to this but with the dumbbell curl you can actually do some fully lengthened partials at the bottom and really
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fatigue that range of motion and this would block you so this is right in the middle and if you're just looking at the context of the tier list I think this is an appropriate ranking C tier 4 c b tier
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4 the strict barbell curl up next we've got incline dumbbell curls incline dumbbell curls are just they're very similar to a bayian curl but they're more stable so they are a little bit better than uh little bit better than a
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bayian curl in my opinion uh you can get a very good stretch on biceps here it's still about a mid-range resistance profile it's not going to be most challenging at the bottom and getting easier as you come up as you curl it's
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going to get harder and harder until your arms get too parallel with the ground to your forearms that is uh so it's not quite length and biased you can still do some length and partials here but I find that it just feels a little
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bit weird without having that added stability of something behind your elbow especially as you get stronger on these I've gotten pretty strong on incline dumbbell curls they start to feel a little bit we once you get to about 55
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PBS uh yeah I never I don't think I ever tried 60 but I was doing 55 for my working sets for like eight and that's where it started to feel a little bit weird um if if I'm putting my own
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subjective feeling into it so obviously it's a dumbbell too so it's a little bit less stable there is back support but there isn't elbow support so I don't think you're quite getting maximum Force production so what I'm going to do here
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is put it uh High a tier I have a hard time putting it as high as these preacher variations but I think it's better than a bayian curl I would say overall as mass Builder it's better than the strict dumbbell curl better than the
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alternating curl better than the dumbbell and maybe not better than the dumbbell pra curl I might if I'm going to rank these officially within the tier I might do this um yeah that that looks more appropriate then these three are
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they're pretty interchangeable yeah it's these are just way too nitpicky to try and rank so up next we've got a seated Mach machine curl so this is the resistance profile is going to depend on the cam of the
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machine so it does vary from machine to machine but what I'm going to say with this is let's just assume it's a flat resistance profile it's a great lift because there is going to be elbow support on the vast majority of these
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machines uh if not all of them the resistance profile is flat so uh it's not going to make any specific part of the range of motion harder except for where you are most weakest which is usually going to be the contraction but
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the good news is there is going to be tension at the bottom sometimes with these machines the range of motion is limited since you can't just assume everyone can go all the way into full elbow lock out so I do find that with
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these machines I've only used a handful of them but most of them start the range of motion probably right about here which isn't that much of a deal breaker uh because it does have a lot of upsides like the flat resistance profile where
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even if you don't get a full extension uh you at least get high tension when you're pretty much at a full extension uh you get the stability of the elbow support you get to sit down uh and you
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can just pump so hard on these uh you can push them so hard and I and for that reason I really do like this lift um these I would put up in a tier these are going to be very comparable to just a
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strict dumbbell curl uh it's it's a flat resistance profile with this you can do length and partial so the differences are going to be fairly nitpicky they're both obviously a very similar setup I would put this just a
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tad Above This lift here um it's a it's a noticeable Gap I would say this is is a little bit better um but this isn't far behind so it's kind of like these three and then these three are like kind
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of the lower a tier where the other tiers I feel like everything's kind of interchangeable and then last but not least we've got chinups so chinups uh they do they obviously train a lot of elbow flexion but there's one problem
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here and it's that your back is the prime mover your lats are going to be moving incredibly hard on this lift they're AB absolutely the strongest muscles here they're absolutely the prime mover and while some people really can grow good biceps from chinups it's
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it's a very short biased lift um your biceps are basically as short as they can possibly get right here and then even all the way at the top let's say they end right here that's still a very short position that's like basically
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spider curl position add that to there's not a whole ton of tension there it's like if you're someone that's lucky enough to be able to grow your biceps properly from chinups um awesome like more power to you but if you haven't
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grown your biceps yet do not put all of your eggs in one basket being chinups because you might not be someone that responds to them there's a lot of people myself included that have trained pull-ups and chinups a ton and gotten
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very very strong on those movements and gotten big lats and big backs that had super underwhelming arms the whole chin-ups for biceps thing it's very minimalist I hate to say but it's it's kind of like a dated old school it's
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it's the epitome of like an appeal to Simplicity or an appeal to like masculinity I find where people are just like oh you don't need all these gimmicks just be a tough guy and do these chin-ups and you'll grow it's like
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I'm not saying there's anything wrong with chin-ups but if we're talking about just biceps like realistically here it's just not a good LIF for biceps so for that reason they have to go in D tier and the cool thing about D tier is these
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lifts except for the dead lft not going to lie these two lists can grow your biceps all right even in D tier it's like I would never recommend them but I don't know if you want to get some
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growth from there and you just want to enjoy your training and not take it seriously and enjoy either one of those movements that's fine I would never program them but even in D tier it's not the worst of the worst unless it just
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doesn't actually train bicep like a conventional or deadlift variation of any kind uh I hope this list was comprehensive and made made sense hope you learned a lot if you have any questions uh on any of these bicep lists
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feel free to hit me up in the comments if you have any other tier lists you'd like to see uh after this let me know I'll I'll pick the most upvoted one uh obviously my personal bias for the next
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one's going to be triceps not going to lie uh but with that being said that's all I got for today so hope you enjoyed the tier list and I will see you guys in the next video
Topics:bicep exercisestier listBasement Bodybuildingstrict dumbbell curlcable curlsexercise selectionmuscle growthstrength trainingbicep workoutfitness tips
